I have a love-hate relationship with IKEA and can sit for hours and read their huge catalogue at home. Yet, when I enter the store I have to walk miles through areas I have no interest in. But as I stroll casually through each department I use my phone’s pen to draw my way through that obstacle course and somehow I find myself yet in another dead end. I end up purchasing another box of tea lights and $200 of things I do not need for my home. I’ve heard customers complain about this at Costco too: “Just came for milk and eggs” and $800 later, I still don’t see the milk and eggs. Sometimes I just like to stand in the IKEA parking lot and watch people try to fit everything into their small cars.
I must argue with the person who wrote that anyone that cannot assemble something from IKEA should go back to kindergarten. When no text is used in assembly instructions this should be the first warning that the bed you just bought that morning is not going to be slept in that night. I am sure whoever else is assembling the same product in another part of the world like Thailand is having the same dilemma. Exactly what is that little illustrated Swedish man pointing at? A word of warning to remember is that your completed furniture is only as good as the “chosen one” who has volunteered to put it together. Welcome to IKEA , they just throw in extra instructions to mess with you.
IKEA sells over 16,000 products online, of which 9,209 items are now being resold on Kijiji. Half are dresser drawers that are missing knobs which have long fallen off and been lost. Most have mislaid the instructions so you know your end result will look like something conjured up by IKEA hackers.
IKEA also started making homes in Europe in 1996 called “BoKlok”. It was a move to allow first-time home buyers to have a chance at a cheaper place to live. What if the owners of one of these homes divorce? Who gets custody of the Allen wrenches? Do they share? Didn’t that Allen wrench once put together the Eiffel Tower?
Really in the end it’s about who you want to spend the day at IKEA with, and the ultimate purpose of going to IKEA remains just as mysterious as the little dots they put over the vowels in their names. Even IKEA knows the struggle us mere mortals face when assembling their furniture! I would would love to tell you more jokes about IKEA, but in the end the setup is too long and the final product mediocre. I mean I tried for hours but I just couldn’t seem to put one together.
